Some Are Benefiting from COVID-19
I’m pretty sure grocery stores and toilet paper manufacturers are seeing a bump in sales because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the largest increase may be in TV viewership.
According to Nielsen data analysis, media consumption rises by nearly 60%. There is also an increase of 61% in streaming video. Consumers who live a quarantine lifestyle tend to watch news, featured films or general programming.
Nielsen based its conclusions on TV usage during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and the Northeastern blizzard of 2016. Nielsen also discovered that TV viewing among employees who worked remotely was higher than in-office workers. Remote workers watched three hours more each week than in-office workers.
These results are based on past disasters and are not current numbers. Those numbers will be coming out shortly. People in quarantine for weeks on end will drive new viewing levels never seen before.
Disney took advantage of the increased viewing and moved up the release date of “Frozen 2.” Disney closed its parks, but Mickey is still a strategic marketer.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.